Inside Towers reported on Monday that a federal appeals court upheld the FCC’s decision to allow SpaceX to amend its original plan to deploy some of Starlink’s 2,814 satellites closer to earth. The move is part of Starlink’s offering of space-based broadband internet. Competitors DISH Network and Viasat appealed the agency’s decision in federal court.
The parties argued their cases in December 2021, before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In the opinion written by Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, the court said in 2019, the FCC’s International Bureau approved SpaceX’s request to lower roughly half the satellites in its constellation, after finding that the changes would impose no undue interference and would serve the public interest.
In the order under review, the full Commission authorized SpaceX to launch the remainder of its satellite constellation into 335- to 354-mile orbits, down from the original 690- to 807-mile operational range.
In its opinion, the court upheld the FCC’s original decision, and said the legal claims from both DISH and Viasat lacked merit or standing. DISH argued the proposed changes would interfere with its Geostationary Orbit satellite television service. “DISH contends that the interference determination was arbitrary and argues that the FCC unreasonably refused to consider expert reports claiming that SpaceX’s proposed changes would interfere with DISH’s GSO satellites,” said the Court.
Viasat asserts that SpaceX’s satellites may cause debris to collide with its own satellites. “Viasat posits that SpaceX’s satellites may collide with other orbiting bodies, which may cause more space debris, which may in turn collide with a Viasat satellite,” according to the Court.
The Court called this theory of injury “much too speculative.” It noted: “Viasat’s theory of space debris collision does not cross the line from speculative to certainly impending.”
Viasat also asserts that SpaceX’s constellation increases its own operating costs—for example, by making it more technically complex and more expensive for Viasat to launch its own satellites.
“We do not question that space congestion attributable to SpaceX may impose economic costs on Viasat itself,” said the Court. “But we do not think that Viasat (or its shareholders, officers, employees, customers, suppliers, or other stakeholders) can fairly be described as having personally suffered a nuisance, aesthetic, or other environmental injury from congestion in outer space.”
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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